8 Marketing Strategies to Drive Visitors to Your Website

You may have recently spent a fair amount of money and created a killer site. It looks great, functions seamlessly are super user-friendly and highlight all the best parts of your business. Now the problem is—no one is seeing this masterpiece of digital proportions. So how do you drive consumers to your website; this is a question with which many small businesses struggle. This is why we've compiled a list of 8 marketing strategies that you can implement to drive traffic to your site!

First Off, See What Is Working

There has to be some sort of marketing strategy that is indeed working well for you. Be it an email subscriber list, a weekly newsletter, promotions and giveaways, social media updates, what have you…What seems to be generating the best results? Figure this out and then work from there. Any website marketing strategy will be better served if not executed in a vacuum; in other words, the strategies suggested can all be supplemented by what you may be doing now that is, in fact, attracting customers. So Step 1: take a good long look at your marketing/advertising across the board and reevaluate the tactics you're using in light of trying to ramp up internet traffic.

Search Engine Marketing

SEO—a term that so many throw around and yet cannot necessarily define. And that is because search engine optimization incorporates a number of strategies in an effort to make it so that your site organically rises to the top of the Google heap. Optimally, you would hire a freelance SEO specialist to help you with this as there are many moving parts when it comes to SEO—and generally speaking, unless you are very conversant with this, it can be hard to pull off.

From knowing what keywords to use, to integrating critical links within your site, to understanding how to utilize analytics to improve your SEO strategies, getting your website to rank highly is a task best left to an experienced professional.

Is Your Web Design Working?

Development is one thing; a good website developer is invaluable, but that doesn't necessarily mean that your design is where it needs to be. The way that people think and feel about your site upon first glance is crucial. This could mean the difference between them sticking around and browsing through the various pages or immediately clicking off.

You want to ensure that the site is easy to navigate, that it's clean and not cluttered, and that there are no broken and/or faulty links. Everything needs to flow well and entice users to explore further.

Content Marketing

Content is key! This cannot be stressed enough. Yes, of course, you're selling a product or service, and you want to attract users so that they wish to learn more about your product; however, you also want to include information, articles, videos, anything that can be of value to your target market. Google also likes content that is educational and thus useful. In fact, in many cases, the search engines will give preference to sites that do in fact provide more than just a glorified sales pitch. So work on getting content around that engages and informs.

Establishing An Email List

Generating a list of email subscribers is a terrific way to spread the word about your site. Email also lets you communicate directly with potential customers thereby giving your business that personal touch. However you go about gathering email addresses from prospective clients, you want to make sure that you put these addresses to good use.

For instance, you can send out newsletters, company updates, promotion information, and within every email be sure to include a link to your website. If the email is strong enough, they may be curious enough to visit.

Identifying Influencers

The emergence of influencers has given a whole new dimension to digital marketing. Influencers are people in your specific field that tend to have tons of followers and consequently, what these influencers say goes a long way. Be it through Instagram, Facebook, or any other such platform, influencers understand how to attract attention and keep people's interest. What you can thus do is to identify those influencers central to your business and try and strike up a relationship with them. If you're launching a new product why not send them one asking them to try it—if they fall in love with it, they just might mention it to their legions of fans. This could be a huge boost to your website traffic.

Conversion Optimization

Once people do start coming to your site, the trick then becomes converting. Meaning, how do you turn a user into an actual buyer? You want people to scroll through your site certainly, but ultimately the end game is to get them to take action and purchase your product. Conversion optimization is about getting visitors to your site to do just this. Here is where analytics definitely come into play. You have to watch trends and patterns that arise on your site. Use this information to help improve your conversion rates.

Communicating With Your Customers

It's a pretty simple premise: get out there and actually have conversations with potential customers. In this way too, you can alert them to your updated website, encourage them to check it out and ask them to spread the word. Everyone likes to see someone who is passionate about their business; in talking to your customers face to face or on the phone perhaps, you really have a chance to express your passion for what you do, and hopefully get them excited about it too!

Understanding Which Strategies Will Work Best For You

These are just a few ideas to help drive traffic to your business's site. You will most likely get the best results by using a combination of these, or of other strategies that you might come up with. The key is not only to have a terrific site but to ensure people are on it. And once they are, get them to go from user to consumer.

At First Union, we offer many loan options from short term loans to lines of credit if your business is in need of funding to execute some marketing strategies. Call today!